love

This past Sunday I got a chance to attend the second Maziar Cup, a soccer tournament created to remember Mazi Maghsoodnia, who was lost to the earth community March 13, 2016. It was a gorgeous day, sunny but with a breeze and a hint of cool that made it just perfect for soccer. It was on a hill, which, being closer to the sky, was just right, somehow feeling closer to Mazi to me (I don’t know why this image of heaven being above us lingers, but it does). There were the occasional high floating clouds, which seemed almost like otherworldly observers. Like soccer players on the other side were hanging out up there with Mazi, like he was elbowing them, ‘look! That was Auveen who crossed it so perfectly!’

There were athletes of every age playing with such a fierce intensity that my knees cringed at every twist and fall. Only the young bend and don’t break, and these competitors weren’t all young. There were young men and a little bit older men and men a little bit older than that, and women and girls, and they were all having fun, and no one gave anyone an easy time of it.

I wonder if Mazi was there watching, moving among his friends, slipping around his family, smiling and adding his kick to make a ball go just a little harder. I wonder if the breeze that kept lifting Lida’s hair was Mazi’s touch. I wonder if he stood in awe looking at his family, all of them broken hearted and thriving. I wonder if he saw how Nader has grown, and how he and the other boys not quite big enough to join in the fierce competition on the field found an unused net and started up their own half field game, taking turns in the goal. I wonder if he saw Ollie the diabetic dog hunt down any sliver of shade, standing in the shadows of spectators as his eyes kept track of Lida. I wonder if he heard Auveen tease Kian for taking off on his trip too soon. Did he love the shirts with his name on the back?

Did he love the shirts with his name on the front?

Who knows why someone is gone too early? Maybe it’s just random. Maybe there is a reason. Maybe all we can do is hold each other’s hands and share the memories about the one that is gone.

In the end it was a gathering of people with a common interest in an uncommon man. A man who was, so clearly, so abundantly, loved. And isn’t that what we’d all like, in the end, when we leave? To be loved and remembered. Like the Raymond Carver words:

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

Looking around at the people gathered at the Cup, at the rich network of friends and family spending their day honoring him, I have no doubt Mazi would answer, “I did.”

I have a soft spot for well groomed older men. There is one I often see creaking along on my walking trail, dapper in pressed khakis and a crisp button-down, white hair neatly cut and combed. The sight of him always makes me smile, reminding me as he does of my Dad. As long as I’ve been alive my Dad has gotten up early, showered, shaved, and dressed himself well. This constancy gave me a sense of safety, of security. I didn’t like the rare times I saw Dad sick, reminding me that he is mortal, that life isn’t as predictable as his behavior suggested.

My Dad would be the first to admit that he made mistakes in life. He was from a generation of men who showed their love by working long hours away from their loved ones. At that time Mom was the glue holding the family together, driving to piano practice, buying the birthday presents. When I went off to college Mom made the weekly calls and put Dad on at the end for a few words.

Then they divorced.

On his own Dad figured out how to stay connected with his children. It turned out he was startling good at picking presents, the silver bracelet I eyed in a Nantucket jewelry store, the fuzzy blue sweater that went with my eyes. Picking a good present is a way of noticing, and Dad showed me he noticed who I was and what I liked. And then there are the Sunday night phone calls. For over 30 years he has tracked me (and my brother and sister) down every Sunday night. We talk about the weather and the grandchildren’s soccer scores. Nothing profound, but a comfort in the knowledge of each other’s days.

At the end of visiting him several years ago Dad got up at 5:00 a.m. to see me off. His hair was messy and his pajamas flapped around his skinny ankles as he insisted on wrestling my suitcase into the car. I even caught a whiff of morning breath. I drove away disturbed by this image of frailty, fearful he was getting old. Turned out he was fine, I just was unused to seeing him in an ungroomed state.

As a parent myself, struggling with the many ways we can fail our children, I am comforted by the thought that an unwavering constancy of attention and a refusal to give up on trying your best can overcome a multitude of other parenting mistakes. I may be three thousand miles away and over fifty years old, but I have never left my Dad’s radar screen. My Dad is the template through which every other man is judged, his effects, both intentional and unintentional, felt in every day. Not by chance did I marry a man who is passionate and hard working and has a constant presence like my dad. I’m trying to give him a break on the morning breath, though.

Glennon Melton Doyle wrote that “compassion is not your pain in my heart. That’s pity. Pity helps no one. No, compassion is your pain in my heart and back out through my hands. Feelings are just energy. Eventually we have to make something with them.” (If you haven’t checked out Glennon’s blog do it as soon as you are done reading this http://momastery.com/blog/).

I was sitting there feeling the pain in my heart of losing Mazi Maghsoodnia and I hadn’t done anything with that. We so often don’t. We talk to each other and repeat, over and over, ‘I can’t believe it.’ Talking is helpful, and then, as Glennon said, you need to go beyond the pain in your heart.

So when Quinn S. called me one night and asked me if I wanted to go up to the town rock and ‘paint away the pain’ (so eloquently said, Quinn) it felt like the right thing. And then more pain came back out through my hands when I wrote a couple blog posts about the experience. But I wasn’t the only one making something with the pain and it feels like it is time to reveal the other Sisters of the Rock.

Amy, on the far right, came up with the idea to paint the town rock in Mazi’s honor. This wouldn’t have happened without her brilliant idea.

Quinn, second from right with the devilish grin, organized the entire op, including the 7-11 run for tall-boys. This wouldn’t have happened without her desire to do something with her pain.

Christie, in the middle, outlined the letters (beautifully big! You can see them from way far away) and created the soccer ball (repeatedly checking a picture on her phone, while we all worried the police would see the light).

Prab, second from left, filled every spot with paint, soldiered over the top and bottom making sure nothing was left uncovered.

Karen, on the far left is the one who had two people holding on to her sweatshirt as she hung over the top of the ‘M’ to get the top of the letter just right.

I’m the historian, taking the picture and struggling to put words to how the pain is coming back out through our hands. (Apologies for the blurry picture but it was late. And dark. And we are perhaps, like Barbara Walters, enhanced by a bit of a blur to a photo. Plus we can deny participation if anyone tries to make trouble for us.)

Those of us with blond hair woke up to pink bangs, the red paint that stuck on our hands ending up somehow in our hair (I liked it, wished it had lasted longer). We also woke up to blackened pillows because we used eye black to paint ‘mazi’ on one side of our faces and a heart on the other.

Each time I write a blog post about Mazi my husband reminds me that I haven’t actually mentioned how we know Mazi. So, third time’s a charm, Mazi was my son’s Eclipse soccer coach along with Miguel Camacho (aka ‘the Soccer Whisperer’). Mazi and Miguel were a great team. The whisperer and the vocal cheerleader. The loud positive and the quiet positive.

This U12 soccer team was a team that took its time coming together. When you put kids from different towns together it takes a while to gel, and this team was no exception. When you play soccer for an organization that, gasp, values kids playing multiple sports, it takes even longer to get to know everyone, because they weren’t all always there at practices, or even games.

Mazi and Miguel worked their magic and the team started to play well together. And they won a few games. And lost a few games.

It was all fun but they had never won a tournament.

And then, in August of 2015, Eclipse played in the Copper Select tournament in San Ramon against the mighty Mt. Diablo Arsenal. In retrospect I wish had been taking notes, wish I had a more fact based description of that tournament (but then again, it was never my goal to be a sports reporter). What I know is that the Eclipse team that weekend somehow kept winning. What I know is that Mazi’s whole family was there to watch Nader and Mazi. What I know is that, against the odds, the Eclipse team ended up in the FINAL GAME!

I remember hearing the whispers up and down the sideline as that final game started, Arsenal usually creamed their opponents. They always scored a bunch. They were unbeatable.

The game was the most intense I had ever seen our team play. Every kick, every pass was contested by both sides. Our kids played with a fever we had never seen. They played like the future of the world hung in the balance, like if they lost, nuclear bombs were going to start going off in the parking lot and continue going off all over the planet. They played like they would lose their phones and video games forever if they lost. They were sweating, they were running until they were breathless, they were sticking a foot in where they couldn’t make a steal. They were dogging the other team, hanging close to their defender/offender and doing whatever came to mind to win that moment.

Mt. Diablo Arsenal shot many many times on our goal and somehow, the ball never went in. We could hear the parents on the other team exclaiming in disbelief, like a spell had been put on our goal protecting it. The ball hit off of the cross bar, the side bar, off the tip of our goalie’s finger, off the side of our other goalie’s toe. And our defenders seem to literally be giving pieces of themselves to every ball and defense. Everybody watching knew there was something special going on. No one wanted to say that, no one wanted to jinx it, but it was special.

So often in these kinds of battles parents along the sidelines start to be snipey at the other team’s parents. But this didn’t happen. There was a grudging respect because the game was that good. We were all yelling for our team but when the other team did something good there was an appreciation for that.

The game, improbably, unbelievably, against all odds, was tied at zero at the end of regulation. It is hard to describe what a triumph even that was. It shouldn’t have happened. It had never happened before against this team (and never has again, and we’ve played them multiple times). But there it was.

And with the waning daylight they went straight to penalty kicks.

My son was the goalie who would be receiving the penalty kicks in the biggest game of his life, the biggest game of his team’s career. Knowing he was a reluctant goalie at best, I had to fight off the urge to run across the field and snag him and take off for the parking lot at a fast run, worried what a loss might feel like to him. And then, I saw someone standing in front of him, hands on his shoulders, leaning in and talking. I saw my son’s head nodding. I saw him nod again. Even from a distance I saw his shoulders relax. It wasn’t Miguel. It wasn’t Mazi. It was Kian. Mazi’s older son, a guy who knew something about being a goalie. I would later learn that Kian gave him calm instructions. Told him to watch the hips of the the player as he kicked, know which way the ball was going to go, know which way to dive. Made him believe he could do it. Made him trust himself and his team. Kian wasn’t a coach on this team but, like a Maghsoodnia, jumped in to do what he knew to do. Quietly, calmly, he gave my son confidence.

Parents on both sides were yelling, grabbing each other, looking to the heavens for help. Each kick and goal or save resulted in gasps and screams. There was no heartbeat that was calm at that point. No player, no coach, no parent. Well, maybe Miguel, the Soccer Whisperer was calm, but the rest of us were shaking with adrenaline.

Back and forth it went until we were tied.

Each team had one last chance. Eclipse kicked and scored to put us one ahead. And then it was up to us to defend one last kick to win.

“Watch the hips,” Kian had said and he did. He stuck his hands out as the ball shot toward him, and the ball flicked up and away from the goal.

Eclipse had won.

The first tournament win for this group.

The most exciting, ecstatic dancing (and we know Mazi can dance), the dog pile, the screaming, it was, in that fading twilight, a pure joy.

Who was to know that the fading twilight also described Mazi?

Maybe that intense joy spoke of an awareness, in some subconscious part of all of us, that this win meant something more. Looking back it feels like maybe it was a gift, a perfect day for the Maghsoodnia’s to keep in their memory bank. Because Lida was there to watch Nader, Auveen was there, Mazi was there, Kian was there and helped coach. And one of the best pictures ever is this one: Kian and Auveen with Nader on their shoulders, their parents there to share in the joy.

The feeling of team, it is so special. We all desperately strive for winning, for great performances, for great stats for ourselves and then our kids. But maybe what we are really looking for, with all this sports hoopla, is to feel like part of something. Maybe this is the real trophy, to feel part of a team.

Isn’t this what family actually means, that you belong to something? Someone has your back, someone cares about you, someone is working with you to make life better. My husband coaches for a living and it is the thing he strives for the most, to give his players this feeling of being a family. Of a brotherhood that goes deeper than batting average or wins and losses. When you feel that connection to others you realize how much more you can achieve than if you were just working on your own.

People may think that winning makes you feel like a team, but it more often works the other way around, when you are a team, a true team, that is when you start winning. We all felt it at that tournament, this team that Mazi and Miguel created. Those boys were playing like they were brothers and their brothers’ lives were on the line. It infected the sidelines, the parents all felt connected too. There’s nothing like a rush of adrenaline and a wild hug after a penalty kick goal to bring people together. We weren’t just hugging the people we knew best, we were all hugging everyone. It was such a shared joy.

This concept of shared joy, it is just so Mazi.

I am deeply grateful that my son got to be part of Mazi’s Eclipse team, and that I got to be part of the team that painted Mazi’s rock. We called ourselves ‘Sisters of the Rock,’ and I’ll tell you this, you didn’t have to be one of the people up there that night to belong to this team. There are many more Sisters out there, and Brothers too. Which is another way of saying that Mazi left a worldwide family, and that family will take care of its own.